| Gingers
Of Peninsular Malaysia & Singapore Author : K.Larsen Classes : Plants Price : US$ 20.00 Availability : Pages : 135 Dimensions : 214. 153. 9 mm ISBN : 983-812-025-1 Code : 99011 |
The Gingers are an important part of the tropical flora, and appreciated and used worldwide, whether as ornamentals, spices or in medicinal preparations. The large and diverse family of the Gingers is especially significant to the Malesian area, a botanically distinct region comprising Malaysia, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Singapore, where the very many species are represented by forms ranging from small forest-floor plants to epiphytic forms and giant herbs reaching several metres high.
Most writings on Gingers in the southeast Asian tropics have been scientific papers published in journals or short general articles highlighting the general importance of the group. For the first time, this book brings together the writings of specialists on various aspects of the Ginger family and displays the beauty and importance of Gingers in Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore, where there has been a strong interest in the study of wild gingers since the eras of Ridley and Holttum.
As this book reveals, there is fascinating form combined with great beauty in a group which, as modern studies indicate, continues to hold promise of interesting commercial possibilities. Gingers have been a part of the Asian cultures as long as those cultures can be recalled. This has helped to highlight a group that symbolises the immense biodiversity of rain forests, for which active scientific studies are still being conducted, and which must, like other special aspects of rain forests, receive due conservation attention.
AUTHOR
Dr K. Larsen, a Danish professor at the University of Aarhus, where he founded he Botanical Institute, has worked in Southeast Asia for more than forty years, mainly in Thailand. He has worked on the Zingiberaceae for about thirty years, is coordinator for the Zingiberaceae for Flora Malesiana, and was co-author of the Zingiberaceae for the Flora of China.
He is an honorary board member of the Queen Sirikit Botanic Garden, Chiang Mai, Thailand, and member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters and the Norwegian Science Academy. Dr H. Ibrahim is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur She has worked on the gingers of Peninsular Malaysia since 1983, mainly on aspects of the taxonomy, cytology and phytochemistry.
Since 1994, she has been on the Board of Directors for the Heliconia Society International, which also has interests in plant groups such as the Gingers. S.H. Khaw is a botanist who lectured at the Institut Teknologi MARA in Shah Alam, Selangor from 1968 until her retirement in 1996.
She has taken up study of the Gingers since joining an expedition to the Belum rain forest of Perak state in Peninsular Malaysia. An ardent gardener as well, she has built up a specialist collection of gingers in her garden at home in Petaling Jaya, near Kuala Lumpur Dr L.G. Saw is Senior Forest Botanist at the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia, Kepong, and heads the Botany Section and Herbarium there.
He has special interests in palms, particularly the genus Licuala, and the natural history and conservation of Malaysian plants. Dr K.M. Wong of the Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Malaya, is the Editor.